Power Turbine
How Can a Computer Attack Destory a Power Plant Turbine?
I’ve been hearing stories in the news about how a remote attack on a power plant can make the generators destroy themselves. Does anyone know how it’s possible for a turbine to essentially self-destruct? I’ve seen the government video but I can’t imagine how this would work. Thanks.
Turbines need lubricating oil to operate…. Shut off the lubrication oil pumps and interrupt the flow of oil and you damage the bearings and or reduction gear. You can also cause lube oil failure by messing with the oil cooler temperature controls. Too high or too lo and the oil looses its lubrication properties and you end up with bearing damage.
Shut off auxilliary steam flow to air ejectors and secure the gland seal steam(seals the shaft penetrations in theturbine casing) and the condenser looses vacuum. Doing this causes a rapid rise in exhaust temperature and pressure in the condenser. This runs the risk of rupturing the exhaust trunk and or condenser housing
Send a signal to the speed control and have the generator throttle open up to take more electrical load from the buss. Max out the electrical load the generator takes. Ramp up the buss volatge the generator produces then open the electrical dissconnect while the gen is under this max load. This will cause severe arcing on the switch gear and the sudden removal of load while at max throttle will cause a sudden increase in speed that can exceed the overspeed trip speed. This stresses the turbine rotor or at worst causes a failure in the turbine blading.
Also the sudden drop in steam usage by rapidly closing the throttle from max will cause rapid pressure rise in the boilers. Safety valves will lift to blow off excess steam and you end up with a boiler casulity at the same time. (Shrink and swell of boil water, moisture carry over, boiler fires being extinguished, boiler water circulation being effected)
Moisture carryover from the boiler is liquid water carried along with the steam. In an excessive carryover condition liquid water could reach the turbine. Water drops hitting turbine blades will damage the blades causing severe damage.
Remember that gen that took the load then released it. Well that change in electrical load also effects other generators on the buss and these rapid load changes can cause these gens to trip off line as well. (Progressive trip)
Now consider a coordinated attack that causes multiple issues at the same time. Give the operating staff a distraction casulity to occupy their time and trigger additional casulities in the plant while they are distracted.
Many plants use DCS, OPC and or SCADA to remotely operate and control a plant from the control room. Central monitoring and operation allows a reduced staff to operate a plant. Destroy or inhibit these systems and you will not have enough manpower to properly operate and monitor the entire plant. Also consider how just interfering with the control system in a subtile way such as providing a false but beliveable fake reading of an oil temp could case a problem.
EDIT:
OilFieldTrash
When you raise the speed setting of a paralleled generator you do not necessarily raise the buss frequency but rather cause the generator to take more electrical load from the buss. The generators in parallel are electrically locked together (by electromagnetic effects of the generator) speed wise so to change frequency you have to adjust speed settings on all gens. Changing speed on any single generator adjusts how much load that generator will take from the buss.
If you suddenly disconnect a loaded generator from the buss you will get a sudden speed increase. The disconnected generator no longer limits the speed of the turbine, the generator is no longer providing resistance to being turned by the turbine. So the opened throttle position is providing steam to drive an electrical load that has suddenly been removed the result is a dramatic and sudden speed increase of the turbine.
Normally a generator speed setting is lowered to allow the generator to be electrically unloaded. This is done first before opening the breakers so as to prevent an over speed and to prevent damage to the switch gear from opening a breaker under electrical load.
So yeah I’ve operated quite a few turbine and power generation systems in my day….
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